


in the need of (something)

by Hymn



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Pre-CoM, Some Sexual Activity, lemme know if i missed a tag please!, possibly spoilers, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-12
Updated: 2006-07-12
Packaged: 2019-03-12 12:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13547742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: Roxas is, perhaps not surprisingly, a pain in the ass to track down.





	in the need of (something)

**Author's Note:**

> for laylah's birthday

Roxas is, perhaps not surprisingly, a pain in the ass to track down. Which has been one of the primary reasons that Axel has haunted his side so closely since the kid showed up. 

The main reason, of course, is that Axel likes being entertained, and their newest bitchy blonde is both amusing and interesting; things tend to _happen_ around him, different things, even though Axel cannot quite describe why something as routine as a lot of death and carnage and a high adrenaline rush would be different, merely because of the presence of some kid half his height.

It’s almost enough that it simply _is_.

But occasionally duty beckons, and Axel is forced to actually do something productive for the cause, because it’s not like he really trusts anybody else to do it properly for him, and if he wants to keep on, well, not really living, but _existing_ , at least, and not stripped down to a Dusk, then he’s going to make damned sure he’s still valuable. Even if he doesn’t exactly like proving it all that often, let alone the necessity of it.

Axel usually tries not to think of that, however, except in the occasional ponderings on how best to avoid it. He’d rather occupy himself with something diverting, after all; something, at least, that breaks up the drear monotony of anything and everything that never was.

Because maybe he doesn’t have a heart, but Axel has a brain and a most particular sense of boredom; so as soon as he gets back, before he’s even cleaned the last bits of gristle and blood from his hair, when he still smells of charred things, and his fingers are twitching like he ought to still be twirling something deadly, and the clicking-glitter-danger of his Assassins still shines in his eyes, he goes in search of Roxas.

Not - he tells his chest, which is feeling rather full for such a supposedly hollow place - because he has missed him; but, rather, because he is bored.

It takes what feels like a small eternity, of course, and by the time Axel finds the kid, he’s about ready to flambé some of the potted flora Marluxia insisted upon; tempting not only because it’ll ease off some of his irritation, but because Marluxia is ever so much fun when he’s in a snit. 

Just figures, after all, that after sliding through portals all over the Castle looking for him, he’d be in the least likely place Axel would have thought he’d be. Roxas is kind of like that, doing the exact opposite of what everybody obviously expects.

In his weaker moments, Axel finds this irresistible. Though he’s not always certain, Axel thinks his weaker moments might be growing exponentially.

The Echoing Cavern of Woeful Verse is much like the rest of the Castle – white, white, and white, and atrociously named – and if it weren’t for the bookcases, it’d be easy to spot the black leather robe and the almost-glow of intense blue eyes. As it is, Axel relies on the soft whisper of pages turning to guide him, boots ringing on the tile. 

“Well, well,” he calls, as he turns beyond yet another bookcase and finally spots him, curled up in one of the smoothly arched window-seats. “What have we here?”

Roxas’ eyes snap up at him, a scowl twisting his features. “What the fuck does it look like?”

Taken aback, Axel blinks, because he hasn’t even really _started_ trying to get the blonde riled, and he’s already snapping. He raises an eyebrow, and smiles in a way born to piss people off, purely due to reflex, and not at all because Roxas looks really fucking gorgeous when he’s thinking about maiming things. 

He moves closer, because it’s a little like poking an angry dragon with a stick, and Axel has always had a certain fondness for playing with fire, especially if the prospect of getting burnt is high. 

“What~?” Axel grins, stopping right in front of the blonde and doing a strange kind of looming leer, a little like a gargoyle with his gory appearance, twisted and angular, grin more like a fierce, hungry grimace. “Was the company around here really so poor while I was away? I didn’t think you read.”

Roxas gives him one last disgruntled look, before his face smoothes – not in the manner of hiding, but more in a manner of relaxing, Axel thinks, a little surprised - into something that Axel can no longer read. Except, of course, for the perpetual _something_ that really should be _nothing_ , but isn’t; is a cast, a slant, a certain slope or arch to his features that make Roxas look always a little suspicious, or always a little angry-wary-waiting. His eyes are always hot, even when they’re cold.

Then Roxas gives the book in his hand a disinterested glance, putting it down and rising easily to his feet like something lethal, like he was the one who’d just worked to destroy a world, not Axel. He brushes past him as he leaves, leathers creaking and whispering, heels ringing out confidently. “I don’t think I did either.” 

And that actually makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Roxas is empty, emptier than any other Nobody, because they, at least, have the mixed curse-blessing that is their memories. It’s probably why Roxas was driven to the Cavern; he’s trying to fill himself up with words, with pages, with imagined worlds snug within a fragile binding; to fill up his empty head, where memories should have been, but weren’t.

Usually he fills himself up on death, instead, breaking everyone’s kill records while he’s at it, rather than holing himself up like something domestic in the clean, stiff formality of rows and rows of books with gilt and broken pages.

What Axel doesn’t really know how to explain, however, is why Roxas seems to prefer his company to it all. But Axel’s always too hungry to question it for long. Hungry for that little bit of difference that Roxas sparks, that breaks his boredom and has Axel fascinated despite himself; despite everything he’s been told, and despite the new laws that are supposed to govern their stolen existences.

It’s kind of a loop, warped and unwieldy and ravenous, feeding on itself, because the fact that Axel is fascinated at all is a damned strange thing and subject to fascination itself. 

Axel goes along with it, though, despite the questions that have begun growing and swarming around him like little Shadows, nipping at his heels. Because something is better than nothing, after all, and it’s getting to where Axel would quite possibly follow Roxas to the ends of the earth, if the kid’ll only keep on doing whatever strange thing it is he’s doing.

Sometimes, Axel’s chest gets so tight it’s hard to breathe, and sometimes all he wants to do is curl up around the sulking, implacable form that is XIII and see how long the teen can manage to charm him into sitting still, with just the tilt of his mouth and silent blue of his eyes to keep him there.

Axel feels it again when the portal remains open just long enough for him to slip in, and follow.

When he comes out the other side, Roxas is standing there in his empty room, his arms crossed, not looking at him. There’s another almost-expression on his face, and Axel wants very badly to move forward and press him the three steps backward to the wall, or left five paces to the bed, because destroying worlds really isn’t a quick business, and it’s been a while.

He doesn’t, though. He waits.

“…I think,” Roxas says, “that I may have…missed you. Maybe.” He scowls, and, because he’s obviously a fucking bastard, ignores the way that Axel’s stomach is doing strange loops and the fact that his chest is getting even tighter. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Does it?”

It doesn’t, not really. It’s not logical at all, but from what Axel can remember, that sounds about right – you can’t help the missing, even when it doesn’t make sense – and the strange things going on with him are pretty damned illogical too, because Axel is starting to think it’s not just boredom that’s making him seek out Roxas.

But Axel shakes his head, because surely it’s impossible that a kid - some nobody without a past - is enough to completely fuck his world over in the little while he’s been there. Any contradictory thoughts are swiftly denied, because even Axel can only handle so much.

Sharp and abrupt, Axel moves, and it’s only familiarity and tight control that keeps XIII from lashing out at him on reflex, though the urge is hard and knife-bright in his eyes. It thrills Axel a little, and he thinks the battle-lust might not be quite gone; kisses him, because he doesn’t really want to think about it, wants to keep denying so smoothly, and he can’t do that if Roxas keeps saying such brilliantly damning things to him. 

He kisses him, and it’s hot and hungry and furious, of course; Axel can almost taste the screams of the carnage that he just came from, there in the back of his mouth, which he opens wide for Roxas’ seeking tongue, moaning, because Roxas shudders like he can taste them too.

Once, when he was newer, Axel remembered things like soft curves and sweet laughter; a gentle slow slide. Eventually he stopped remembering, not because it hurts, but because it’s useless remembering something you just can’t give a damn about anymore.

It’s Roxas he craves now, who tangles his fingers in the bloodied, matted snarls of his hair, tugging him down to his level, making him want even as he hisses and snarls and laughs, goes heavy-lidded with pleasure at the mouth against the exposed, vulnerable curve of his neck. Axel trembles, and knows that they won’t make it to the bed; that he will rise later – though only as soon as when Roxas finally glares him into lazy, insolent motion -, rumpled and satiated and abused, with bruises mottling his back from being fucked against the wall.

And Axel isn’t even surprised anymore that he doesn’t want this – them – to fade into memories better left forgotten. He might be fucked too stupid to care, but really, it’s most likely because Axel’s never been very good at denying himself; even things that are impossible.


End file.
